Eurozone Unemployment October 2016

Eurozone: Eurozone unemployment rate steady in November

January 4, 2017

Conditions in the labor market in the common currency bloc remained unchanged in November, according to data by Eurostat. The number of unemployed persons fell by 15,000, which was a significantly smaller decrease than October’s fall of 114,000. The unemployment rate was unchanged at October’s 9.8%, which represents the lowest rate since July 2009.

Looking at the countries in the region, Cyprus, Italy and Lithuania were the only economies to see higher unemployment rates. Seven economies recorded a decline in the unemployment rate, while the labor market was stable in the remaining countries. Notable divergences persist in the labor market among core Eurozone countries and those on the periphery. Greece is the economy in the Eurozone with by far the highest unemployment rate (23.0%, data refer to October), followed by Spain (19.2%) and Cyprus (14.2%).

At the other end of the spectrum, Germany (4.1%), Malta (4.8%) and the Netherlands (5.6%) registered the lowest unemployment rates in the Eurozone in November. Among the remaining major economies, Italy had the highest unemployment rate with 11.9%, followed by France with 9.5%.

In 2016 as a whole, unemployment in the Eurozone is expected to have averaged 10.1%, which is the lowest average rate since 2009. FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists expect the unemployment rate to average 9.7% in 2017, which is unchanged from last month’s forecast. For 2018, the panel expects the unemployment rate to average 9.3%.

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